


Baby, I'm a four alarm fire

by heavenisalibrary



Series: Tumblr Prompt Fills [29]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-24
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-25 14:10:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3813460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavenisalibrary/pseuds/heavenisalibrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re not going to die!” he shouts. He pauses, floundering for a reason why she won’t — because she’s tied to a pyre on a small island in the middle of a flesh-eating eel-infested river with highly toxic waters with locals coming back at any minutes to light her, the witch, of course, on fire and even if he did get back to the TARDIS there’s a disruption filter around the island that would make it more likely for him to kill River himself than save her and it’s all ridiculous but dire — and finally he decides on: “I forbid it.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baby, I'm a four alarm fire

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: “remember, we’re madly in love, so it’s all right to kiss me anytime you feel like it.” or "you’re not going to die. i forbid it.”

River’s got that look in her eye, that look he both hates and grudgingly admires — and worse, the one he’s seen in his own reflection so many times. The one that says ‘you can’t stop me’ paired with ‘I’ve already thought this through from every angle and I don’t like it but this is all that’s left’, and he stammers over a response, his arms pinwheeling as his sides as he looks at her grim face.

“You’re not going to  _die_!” he shouts. He pauses, floundering for a reason why she won’t — because she’s tied to a pyre on a small island in the middle of a flesh-eating eel-infested river with highly toxic waters with locals coming back at any minutes to light her, the witch, of course, on fire and even if he did get back to the TARDIS there’s a disruption filter around the island that would make it more likely for him to kill River himself than save her and it’s all  _ridiculous_  but  _dire_  — and finally he decides on: “I  _forbid_  it.”

He’s shouting across he water and River guffaws at him, her face instantly brightening, as though she’s not at all concerned about her impending death.

"I know you fancy yourself omnipotent, sweetie,” River shouts back, “but that is — frankly — _not_  the case.”

“ _River_!” he shouts.

"Oh,  _River_  this, and  _River_ that,” River says, “would you give it a rest? You’re nearly two thousand, you must know how to fend for yourself by now. Well, you’re going to have to figure it out, aren’t you? Seeing as I’ve got a limited amount of time left to clean up your messes.”

"You know something I don’t,” he accuses, feeling like his throat is closing up. In the back of his mind he runs through scenario after scenario, but they’d been on this planet a little over a month, on and off, and the filter preventing him from just swooping River up is one of their own design, though they haven’t the means to control it at the moment, and he also knows River will have done the same. He’s hardly qualified to check  _her_  math, if he’s honest. “You must — this can’t be… you can’t be  _serious_.”

“Deadly,” River says. Then she smiles. “Woops. Touchy subject.”

He chokes. “No, no, I take that back.  _Be_  serious. Help me fix this!”

“Can’t,” River says, “sorry.”

There’s a roar from the building behind the river where the locals have disappeared into, loud cheering and cries and then a flaming torch appears with a crowd of people on the roof, and they’re going to drop it down on River — his heart feels like it’s distending, his brain feels like it’s simply going to implode with all of the different scenarios he’s trying to arrange and rearrange to no avail, and River’s just smiling wider and wider and he thinks wildly of jumping across and burning with her, not because he has a death wish — although, maybe a little bit of that — but because he can’t stand that this is her end. Time can be rewritten, and if her death’s going to be rewritten too, he wants her to know this time; he wants to be able to hold her or to kiss her or to tell her —

“River!” he shouts.

“Yes?”

“I —” he stops himself. This is so ridiculous and dramatic and downright silly, he can’t believe it’s real, can’t believe it for a second and the words get jumbled and lodged in his throat and the words he wants to say can’t find their way out and all he can say is, “please, don’t leave me.”

His voice comes out quiet and strangled and he’s not sure if she can even hear, but then suddenly the people are dropping the torch, and his world tilts slightly to the side and shakes and  _whoooosh_ es and — hang on, he thinks. Wait a second. He blinks, and when he opens his eyes, he’s inside the TARDIS, River leaning casually against the console. His jaw drops.

“You _—”_ he starts, but he can’t finish.  _  
_

River shrugs. “Tesselecta,” she says, “sad to see it go, but needs must.”

"I will bloody  _kill_  you,” he says, “I could, right now, and I wouldn’t even feel bad about it. I mean, I’m glad you’re not dead, but I could still kill you. Might, even.”

She rolls her eyes and saunters up to him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and leaning up onto her tiptoes when she reaches him, and he just stares at her crossly.

"Remember, sweetie,” she says, “we’re madly in love, so it’s alright for you to kiss me any time you’d like.”

“I could  _kill_  you,” he seethes.

"Kiss me, kill me,” she says, “neither of us are very good at telling the difference, anyway.”


End file.
